


Together

by Kharon



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Fix-It, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), Mentioned Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21956878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kharon/pseuds/Kharon
Summary: Rey takes Ben's hand.I fixed it.
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 19
Kudos: 187





	Together

**Author's Note:**

> For everyone who is disappointed in the movie's ending. 
> 
> Death isn't redemption, it isn't atonement or closure, it's simply an end. We are almost in 2020, I expect storytelling in this day and age to go further, to push tropes, to disassemble them, to go beyond what we have seen and read for decades. There was a narrative there, a continuity they had established but for some reason dropped in the end. It's far from the only thing that annoyed me about The Rise of Skywalker, but it's the one thing I couldn't ignore.
> 
> During the fight with Palpatine I was screaming at them to take each other's hands in my head, to be that dyad and fight him together.
> 
> So yeah, I fixed it.

Palpatine is sucking the life force out of them. Rey understands, but watches with wide eyes, unable to do anything about it. Pain. There is so much pain it paralyzes her. The power of two to restore the one… she can’t concentrate on his words. Her mind is numb, her body both fire and ice at the same time. It hurts so much. She wants the pain to end, wants it to be over, but she’s caught in an eternity of anguish. Minutes, hours, days, it doesn’t matter, she can no longer mark the passage of time.

There is only Palpatine in front of them and Ben beside her. She can feel his presence, it’s like the beat of a heart in the back of her mind. He is there with her, caught in the same agony she is. They’ll die together. It should be a frightening thought but Rey is past fear, instead clinging to the knowledge that Ben is with her. Ben who could have killed her, Ben who she almost killed in her frenzy of grief and rage. Twice. Ben now, not Kylo Ren. Somehow that’s important, though she doesn’t remember why.

Suddenly they are looking at each other, hanging suspended in the air beside one another. Did she open their connection or did he? Rey can’t tell. His eyes are just as wide as hers, his body rigid in pain. She can see herself beside him, but is too tired to spare the twisted vision any thought.

 _Give me your hand_.

He asked her, time and time again. But he was Kylo Ren then and Rey would’ve never taken Ren’s hand. _I did want to take_ _your hand_. _Ben's hand._ She told him in the end, but it’s too late now, isn’t it? Palpatine is going to kill them.

 _Rey._ _Give me your hand_.

She forces herself to concentrate, to fight the agony and be aware of the world around her. It’s Ben. He’s talking to her, his mind gentle steel against her frayed thoughts. His brown eyes are hard but there is a spark behind them, a drive that makes her look down towards where he is moving his right hand, reaching out for her by pure force of will.

_Take my hand._

Alone she wouldn’t have the strength to do it. But Ben is here and he’s steady, enduring the pain, showing her how it’s done, that it _can_ be done. Maybe they are one, two halves that fit each other, complement each other. He didn’t need to come for her when he didn’t have to. She gave him the Skywalker’s lightsaber when she didn’t have to.

Rey fights the pain, she fights the numbness that makes her immobile, reaches within herself not for the Force but her own will, the flame that has always burned bright in adversary. She focuses on her left hand, ignores everything else and listens to the echo of Ben’s voice in her head. If he can do it she can too. It’s childish but she doesn’t want to be left behind ever again and so Rey reaches out, forces herself to become stronger, just one more time.

The tips of their fingers brush. Ben’s face has gone from her mind, the connection broken again, but it doesn’t matter. There is contact, a warmth against her skin that is not like liquid fire and suddenly nothing is stopping them. It’s easy to clasp hands, to intertwine their fingers.

With a thought, one she doesn’t know whose it is, hers or Ben’s or both, they make the pain go away. Palpatine is screaming, an inhuman sound. His mouth is open wide, his eyes bloodshot and full of madness. Around them the world is crumbling, stone bursting and blue lightning cracking, but Rey doesn’t see any of it. She’s tired, so tired. She doesn’t realize that her eyes have fallen shut or that they are back on the ground. Rey is in agony, but there is Ben’s hand in hers.

 _I’m not alone_.

Her head hurts. Her head and her arms and her legs and opening her eyes requires a previously unknown amount of effort. She wasn’t sleeping, Rey knows that. She remembers everything, clearly, up until the point where she took Ben’s hand and the world inverted on its axis.

He is holding her, pinning her upper body close to his chest, gripping her as if somebody will try to take her away from him any moment. His chin is resting on her shoulder, strands of black curls obscuring her vision. He’s sobbing quietly.

Slowly, as fast as she can really, Rey lifts her left hand and touches him back, puts it somewhere against his side so he knows that she’s there and alright and there is no need to cry. Her fingers are still tingling from whatever it is they did and she curls them into the wool of his shirt. It’s warm, _he_ is warm beneath her.

Ben makes a sound then, a quiet breath that hitches in his throat. He puts some space between them, just enough that they are able to look into each other’s eyes while his hands are still holding on to her like he never wants to let her go. The ferocity of it surprises her, the desperation with which he clings to her. It’s… grounding. Soothing. It means that they are alive. Here, together.

The look in his brown eyes is intense, focused, like the only thing he sees is her. A year ago it would have frightened her, when he was still Kylo Ren and she didn’t know what to do with herself, with _them_.

“Ben,” she says, like a breath, like a prayer almost. She hears the awe in her own voice, doesn’t care because they’re here and whole and she knows with the certainty of the Force that Palpatine is gone.

_We made it, Ben._

She moves her hand without thinking, touches his face that’s battered and bruised. There are still tears in his eyes but he smiles when her skin touches his. Rey wants to tell him how beautiful he is but she doesn’t have the words, can’t express the meaning behind the look in his eyes and the one that’s mirrored in her own.

Her fingers stroke his cheek and then hover beside his face, undecided. She wants to keep touching him, to feel his skin and his warmth under her hand, but at the same time it’s not enough.

His lip is almost split, a cut running down his chin. His eyes are blazing.

Rey leans in, gets closer, wants to crawl up inside of him.

_Oh._

The moment her lips touch his, soft, hesitant, her hand framing his face, Ben comes to life beneath her. His hands are on her back, warm and rough, pulling her in, his grip firm. He presses his mouth to hers like he’s drowning, lips moving against hers in the same desperation he held her with earlier.

 _This is love_ , she realizes suddenly, sharply, giving a name to the emotion between them she could never pin down before. It’s a revelation she isn’t prepared for, something she didn’t expect because it’s all need and want, a flame that burns as much as it warms, and she always thought that love would be… pure, serene, gentle.

It’s there however, all of it in Ben’s smile when their lips break apart, in the shine of his eyes and the happy sigh he breathes as their eyes lock again. Rey wonders how she missed that before.

Then he pulls her back in, a hand at the back of her neck. Their next kiss is rougher around the edges, more happiness, more desperation, more everything. She wants to devour him, to burn him and herself right alongside and it’s an alien feeling, one she only ever experienced when they were fighting before.

A crash from the surface shakes the cave.

If they’d been standing they would have fallen over, but as it is they merely disentangle themselves enough to have a look at the cracks running through the ceiling of the destroyed underground hall.

“We need to go,” Rey says. She slowly lets go of Ben, moves her legs so that she’s kneeling above him. The exhaustion is completely gone from her limbs now, in truth she feels better than she has in days. Frowning she looks down at the man beneath her.

His hands are on her hips now, still warm even through the cloth of her dress. He lifts his eyebrows when their eyes meet and a faint grin spreads on his lips. It isn’t a look Rey has ever seen on him, and for some reason she can’t comprehend it flusters her almost as much as their Force bond used to.

She watches his chest rise and fall, feels the slight tremble of his hands.

“You healed me.”

Ben hums. “I gave back what you gave me.”

Which means he saved her from what could have been fatal wounds. He didn’t have to, just as he didn’t have to come to her help. He didn’t need to protect her from Palpatine either. He had so many chances to kill her and he never took them when it mattered… as did she.

“Get up,” she tells him, getting to her feet. Ben looks almost disappointed and for some reason it rattles her. The cave will come down soon and he’s lying there on the ground without a care. With a growl she bends down to haul him up, pulling him to his feet inelegantly and stumbling when his whole weight his suddenly resting on her.

Rey takes a hold of the Force on instinct, lifts his body with her mind before they both go sprawling onto the rocks at their feet. Ben gasps.

She turns her head to stare at him, to make sure that he is alright, that there isn’t some unseen wound killing him. His eyes are blown wide, all of his muscles have tensed up and there is a grimace on his face that looks close to pained.

“Stop,” he grinds out from between clenched teeth.

Unsure what to do she doesn’t move, doesn’t let up the Force because then they’ll inevitably go crashing down. They really can’t afford to lose any more time.

Ben makes an unhappy sound and grips her shoulder with his left hand to try and straighten himself. Or at least so she thinks.

When he uses the Force it’s to gather the two lightsabers from the ground, but Rey barely registers it. Where Palpatine stealing their life force was agony, Ben using the Force is electricity, a steady current going up from her left hand, the one she used to take his hand with. The feeling isn’t pain, not exactly, but it’s hot and crackling, sending a rush of something through her system that makes her feel both heady and itchy at the same time.

“Stop,” she orders and Ben huffs out a laugh.

They drop the Force at the same time, staggering a few steps together until they find their combined balance. It’s awkward and they make slow progress, but she doesn’t think they could keep their hold on the Force with electricity running through their veins.

The cave grumbles around them, pieces of rock falling from the ceiling here and there. It won’t last, the whole planet won’t for all Rey knows.

“Hold on,” she tells Ben when they have made it to the platform. She watches as he shakes in her arms when she lifts them up towards the surface and ignores how content a part deep hidden within her is to see him tremble at her hand. Is that what a sith feels? Is that the border they have crossed now, the one where they would have felt vindicated at finally having killed the other?

The surface of the planet is littered with burning wrecks. The thin atmosphere is already heating up from the fumes of their burning electronics and fuel. Ben’s TIE fighter has lost one of its wings to shrapnel, but thankfully the X-Wing only has a few nicks.

Ben is breathing heavily, sweat making his black curls stick to his face. She doesn’t know if it’s over-use of the Force or the healing that caused his extreme exhaustion, maybe both.

He trembles again when she levitates him into the X-Wing. The seat has room for both of them and she carefully places him into it, then climbs into the cockpit herself. She checks the engine and wings for damage, but the fighter is in remarkable condition, both for being submerged in seawater for over a decade and having survived burning ships falling from the sky.

“It’s my uncle’s fighter,” Ben says behind her. There is an undercurrent to his voice, an emotion Rey can’t place and she slides into the seat with him, unsure of what to answer.

His right hand touches her side, carefully, as if he thinks she could lash out in retaliation, and then his arm winds around her middle, pulling her into him, her back against his chest. There’s a thrill at having him in her back. She tenses on instinct, ready to battle, ready to… to what?

“Rey,” he whispers, putting his chin on the top of her head.

She forces herself to relax, wills out the breath she has been holding, remembering the mediation techniques Leia taught her. It’s hard. Ben makes her anxious in a way he didn’t as Kylo Ren. He has seen all of her, has hurt her and been hurt by her, she gave him Luke’s lightsaber and he offered her his hand. She doesn’t know what she’s afraid of and it makes her angry.

Ben breathes with her, matching her inhales and exhales. A minute goes by, then other, by the next he is asleep, his muscular body going pliant beneath her.

After checking the engine one last time she fires up and gets them the hell out of Exegol.

♠

They are celebrating: the Rebellion, everyone who joined in the last fight and all the others who the news of the destruction of the First Order have already reached. The jungle is alight with fires, people are hugging and dancing between the palm trees. Rey approaches gradually, looking for a place to land that isn’t crowded with all kinds of people.

Ben stirs when she touches down in an empty clearing. He comes to slowly, mumbling words into her neck she can’t understand. His arm is still around her and he pulls her close again so he can press a kiss to the side of her neck. Rey freezes.

It’s like a hot brand on her skin, proof that they survived together, that the desperation, the tenderness she saw in his eyes when she woke up was honest. She knew that before of course, but feeling it again makes her breath hitch. She kissed Ben. She wanted to and then she did and then he came back for round two.

Another kiss to her neck.

“ _Ben._ ”

The old fighter quivers beneath them. Then Ben shudders against her and Rey grasps for control, scrambles to pull the Force back into herself.

“What are you afraid of?” he asks, putting his head back on top of hers.

_You. Me. Us._

“I’m not afraid,” she snaps back.

For a moment he remains silent and she hopes that he will drop it, that they can ignore her and focus on more pressing matters, but if he would he wouldn’t be Ben Solo. He has seen her and he has never shied away from facing her, from confronting her with her own feelings.

“You lost control,” he finally says. There isn’t anything else he needs to say, really. They’ve both seen it in each other, how inner turmoil affects their grasp on the Force. That’s how Rey beat Ben after Han’s death, why he would have beat her on the destroyed Death Star. It’s not about being without emotion, she doesn’t believe that, but about accepting it.

“Palpatine,” she begins, falters and starts again. “Palpatine wanted me to kill him. To cut him down and become the new Sith Lord… it was either kill him or watch him kill _everyone_.”

“But you didn’t.”

_I would have._

Rey swallows. “Because you came.”

Ben’s breathing is uneven, she can feel his heart beat fast and hard against her back. His voice drops, low and rough in her ear. “I knew what I needed to do… I just wasn’t sure if I was strong enough to do it.” 

And there it is, the fear. She holds it tight to her chest, keeps it in an iron grip so it can’t break out again and hurt him. She has so much power. If Palpatine had succeeded, had made her a sith, what would she have done with it? Destroyed the world? Killed her friends? Killed Ben?

“How did you know?” the words gush out of her mouth before she has a chance to hold them back. How can she be sure that she won’t become the woman she saw in the Death Star?

Without warning he opens the connection between them.

She’s looking into his eyes over her own head. It’s both disconcerting and fascinating an experience to make that close up, to be there in body and spirit to experience their bond. She can feel him breathe, both the man behind her and the man in her mind. He reaches out to her, opens his mind, his heart, to her. A vision.

Leia dies and there is agony, a pain so great it makes the physical wound to his body pale in comparison. _Mother_. Rey sees herself, the way she healed him, the echo of her words. _Ben’s hand_. Then there is Han, solid and real, his hand on their face, the understanding in his eyes. She can feel Ben’s resolve. _I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do it_. He throws the red lightsaber into the ocean, to rot in time like the remains of the Death Star. He comes for her, runs as fast as he can and prays. _Let me do this one thing_.

The realization is like ice water poured over her head. For a moment Rey is rigid, caught in the images she will now forever remember, in the knowledge of what he would have done.

She twists around in his hold, grabs his face in her hands, looks into his beautiful, brown eyes. He is an open book to her, hiding nothing under her gaze. He would have killed Palpatine for her, would have taken a killing blow for her, would have given his life in exchange for hers and thought it just.

The world shakes.

“No,” she growls out in a voice that’s both her own and not at all.

There is so much anger simmering just underneath the surface of her mind, barely contained rage at the thought of Ben dying so she could live. _This_ is how she will become a sith, by watching Ben being killed right in front of her eyes, unable to stop it, unable to save him. If they take him from her she will find them, will hunt them down until there’s none of them left.

The thought should be frightening in its intensity but it isn’t. It’s true, a terrifying truth because somehow he became hers and she became his and imagining her life without him in it leaves a hollow feeling in her chest.

“Rey,” he calls, tries to pull her back, reaches for the Force to meet her onslaught. His face is still in her hands, his eyes still soft as they stare at each other.

“No,” she repeats and the world shakes again.

Sparks of blue lightning zap between their bodies as the Force builds up between them. Rey’s body is hot and itchy, almost in pain but not really, and she’s trembling just as hard as Ben is. The X-Wing vibrates around them, their power threatening to tear it apart, it and everything within at least a mile of them.

“This isn’t redemption, Ben.” Her words are slow and pointed, a throb of Force accentuating each. “You don’t get to die for me. You deserve to _live_. Han and Leia and Luke, they wanted you to live. The only thing your death would bring is more pain. _It’s enough_.”

They’re both panting, locked in a battle of wills. What’s around them doesn’t matter, the other people don’t matter, not until Ben has understood that his death isn’t justice, isn’t something he needs to offer in hopes of being accepted. His past is him just as much as his present and future, he has a lifetime left to atone.

“We will destroy the planet,” he whispers against her lips, voice quivering.

“Then stop!”

_There is so much left you can give the world._

He stares at her. She can see the tears start to gather in the corners of his eyes. Then he is kissing her, raw and desperate, gripping her so hard her arms will bruise. She’s burning inside out but it feels good, it feels _real_. Rey kisses him back, digs her fingers into his battered cheeks, the nails of her left hand scraping the scar she gave him. The kiss tastes of salt but she doesn’t care.

The Force they were holding on to dissipates into sparks of blue lightning that light up the cockpit and fry a good half of the controls. She groans into their kiss. Ben chuckles, his chest vibrating against hers.

“Why, Ben?” He knows what she is asking.

_Why did you want to die for me?_

He doesn’t say anything for the longest time, just looks at her. She almost thinks he won’t answer at all, but then he inhales as if to gather his courage and puts his hand on her cheek like she did to him in the sith cave. “Because without you I wouldn’t be me.”

It’s twisted and messy but the thing is that Rey _understands_. He knows her, knows her like nobody else does, her achievements, her skills, but also her insecurities, her failings. With Ben she can never be anything but herself because he will see through any pretense she puts up. She can lie to herself but she can’t lie to him. It’s frightening and comforting at the same time.

She wants to touch him back, but their position is awkward. They have too many limbs and not enough space and her unhappiness must have shown in her face, because Ben tries to make space for her to turn around.

They shuffle around and somehow Rey ends up sitting in his lap with her hands in his hair. Her fingers run over his scalp, play with his black curls and run down his neck to explore his shoulders. He’s warm beneath her, hooks his fingers into her belt and pulls her closer until their chests are touching again. She kisses him.

“You know that we are surrounded?” he mumbles when they come apart for a moment.

“I- yes.” She has, in the same way one notices that there are birds sitting in the trees or that the days are getting shorter as winter on a planet approaches. Details that you recognize are there, but rarely pay any mind to.

Ben knows that she wasn’t paying attention. He stares at her and she stares back, caught. Then, slowly, a grin spreads on his lips, broad and mischievous and for some reason it makes her remember how he looks without a shirt on, all broad shoulders and defined chest.

“We could ignore them,” he offers with a shrug and Rey decides that it fits him, this boldness. It’s a side of Ben Solo she didn’t get to see before, one she thinks nobody has seen in a long time.

“Better not.”

She gets to her feet awkwardly, feels his reluctance to let her go, but now really isn’t the time to think about how his smirk and naked chest make her feel. Rey is clever enough to know that going down that route will lead to more touching and a point where she won’t want to let him go anymore. There are more important things to deal with right now.

The controls for the cockpit’s hatch are jammed by their impromptu Force lightning. She tries to use force to open it, but only pushes against the metal and hardened glass uselessly.

Ben is behind her in an instant. There isn’t enough room for them not to be pressed together standing and she can feel his muscles bulge when he presses his palms against the hatch and pushes it open with the creak of metal scraping on metal.

They are surrounded by at least two dozen rebels.

Several people have their blasters drawn but they aren’t pointed at them and Finn and Poe, who are at the front of their hostile welcome party, are both unarmed. Rey lets out of a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.

“Rey!” Finn screams, his brows knitted together in concern. She scrambles out of the cockpit, runs for him and Poe, who has dark rings under his eyes but looks more relaxed than she ever saw him before. She didn’t know if they’d really made it, had hoped of course, but actually seeing them is something different. It lifts a burden from her chest, one she wasn’t aware she was carrying.

The three of them come together as one. She’s in Finn’s arms on one side and Poe on the other. They clasp hands behind his broad back, laugh together because the First Order is dead and they survived.

“We weren’t sure…” Finn doesn’t need to finish the sentence.

Rey understands. She saw the state Exegol was in when they left. There’s not going to be anyone living on that planet for a long time. It was a barren wasteland to begin with, how it’s a barren wasteland with toxic fumes in the air and smoldering pits of metal and plastic littered across half its surface.

“We made it,” she whispers into Finn’s neck, grips Poe’s hand tighter. It still feels unreal to her, everything from the moment Ben held out his hand to her in the cave.

She looks at him over Poe’s shoulder. He’s still standing in the cockpit of the X-Wing, leaning into the wall of the fighter and watching them. He’s too exhausted, even after the little bit of sleep he got, she can see it in the lines of his face and the hunch of his shoulders.

Poe follows her gaze, turns his head to stare at Ben. The other rebels are still eyeing him tensely, waiting for something Rey knows won’t happen.

“Why is he here?” he asks tersely.

“He saved me,” Rey answers, even though she knows it’s a wholly incomplete answer. She’s not sure she can explain it to them however, the Force bond and what it did to them. _She_ doesn’t understand it fully yet.

_I saved him. He saved me. We saved each other._

Poe lets go of her, then Finn too. She takes a step towards Luke’s fighter, extends her left hand to Ben, asks him for permission. His posture is stiff but his eyes soft and he nods. Around them some people draw back as if the mere gesture is a threat to them. A wry grin settles on his face.

She opens the Force bond with ease. A _dyad_ , Palpatine called it, a thing that is between them and the Force, between them and in the Force maybe. The nuances aren’t lost to Rey, but she lacks the teaching to make any sense of it. Ben knows most likely, has been trained in the Force since when she was born. She wants to ask him, to ask him so many questions, about _them_ , how they killed Palpatine, how neither of them became a Sith Lord.

He takes her hand and steps through. It’s simple now that they aren’t holding back from each other. A breath, a ripple in their minds and he is beside her.

Somebody gasps.

Finn takes a step forward, extends his hand as if to grab Ben, to hit him, but Poe pulls him back. They share a look, one Rey can’t quite interpret.

“Later,” she promises, because she’s tired too and they have a place to go first. Leia, lying underneath a blanket on a stone altar, framed by an overhanging cliff and vibrant green palm tree leaves.

For now it’s good enough. There will be an inevitable fight, between Finn and Ben and Poe and her, about what was and what will be in the future, but that’s for another day. For after the celebration and the partying, for after saying farewell to Leia.

“Thanks,” she tells her friends and leads Ben deeper into the jungle, half his weight resting on her shoulder. His fingers are warm and reassuring on her side.

♠

Tatooine is beautiful. It reminds her too much of Jakku, but it’s a memory she’s learning to cherish again, of a place that was her home, a place her parents took her to to protect her. Because they loved her.

She’s watching the sky while Ben is busy exploring the remains of what once was his grandfather’s home. It’s a nice place, quiet and peaceful, without any rebel armies or First Order loyalists or people who distrust them simply because they are the last two to have been educated in how to use the Force.

Rey wants to meditate here, to sit on a stone, close her eyes and try to be one with the Force as Leia taught her.

Something startles her, an old woman who is leading her mount through the desert. She has wrinkles on her hands and in her face, is weathered by both age and the harsh climate of the planet. She looks at Rey critically.

“What’s your name?”

It’s a question she has been asking herself for a long time now.

She’s Rey, the girl her parents left behind on a desert planet, who they loved so much they gave her up even though it cost them their lives. She’s a child who had to grow up by herself, a confused, scared, angry young woman who was taken in by Han Solo, trained by Luke and Leia, the friend of Finn and Poe and many more of the former rebels, the woman who hated Klyo Ren and somehow fell in love with Ben Solo, who helped kill Sheev Palpatine, Darth Sidious, _her grandfather_.

_Who am I?_

She opens their bond, can feel Ben’s interest as he watches her.

“I’m Rey,” she answers.

The old woman frowns, as if she expected more. “Rey who?”

Rey looks at Ben’s face, sees Leia’s quiet strength in him and Luke’s petulance. The Skywalkers were a strong line, a line of jedi, but there aren’t any true jedi anymore, not the jedi of old – the same there aren’t any sith anymore, not since they reflected Palpatine’s life-draining back on him.

There’s only her and Ben left, Ben who arrived at Exegol with nothing but a blaster, ready to bust her out through sheer stubborn force of will, Ben who would have died for her because she had reminded him of who he was.

_You have too much of your father's heart in you, young Solo._

Rey smiles. “Rey Solo.”

The old woman mutters something she can’t quite hear, but tugs her mount onwards, the setting sun illuminating their silhouettes as they wander away into the desert.

When she turns around Ben is standing there, stance wide, hands on his hips, smirking.

“Rey Solo?”

She nods.

“Rey Solo.”

His shit-eating grin is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a Star Wars fan. I've seen each of the 9 movies exactly once. Thank you so much to my fan-friends who explained to me what a TIE fighter and an X-Wing are, I wouldn't have known. 
> 
> I did a lot of research to get their characters right, in their interaction with each other and how much of a hot mess both Ben and Rey are individually (thanks, tumblr). They are so fucking conflicted and I tried to show that between the lines. Excuse any mistakes in the lore, I don't know any better. 
> 
> Writing this gave me closure, I hope it gives you some as well.
> 
> Thank you so much for all the positive feedback! I'm overwhelmed by how many people enjoyed this fic <3


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